Among the many advantages afforded by the ever-improving price performance of computers, perhaps two of the most beneficial are the ability to run more than one application program at one time and the increased user friendliness provided by graphical user interface operating systems, such as Microsoft Corporation's WINDOWS™ operating systems. Before the advent of multi-tasking graphical user interface operating systems, computers could only execute one task at a time. A user might want to work in a spreadsheet while accessing e-mail and/or perform word processing, but could only perform one of those functions at a time. However, using a multi-tasking graphical user interface operating system, a user can read or copy text from an e-mail message displayed in one window into a word processing application presented in another window, while running other applications in other windows, so that multiple tasks are being executed at one time by the computer. Allowing users to execute more than one application at a time, and to move information between those applications, has greatly improved the efficiency with which users can complete their work.
In addition, because programs are more user friendly, users can now learn new applications and learn new functions in those applications more easily than ever before. On-line error detection can catch inadvertent mistakes, such as a user attempting to close a changed document without saving it, and can then ask the user to confirm the user's choice. Similarly, automatically generated messages, such as calendaring reminders or notifications of e-mails being received, are presented to the user in on-screen windows to help keep a user aware of calendar events and of newly available information. Yet, the plethora of on-screen information may present problems. At times there may be just too many windows open on the display screen for the user to work with effectively, at least in the space permitted on the user's display.
For example, FIG. 1A illustrates a computer display 100a on which a browser window 110 and a spreadsheet application window 120 are open for a web browser currently accessing a web-based e-mail application and a spreadsheet application, respectively. The user may have both windows 110 and 120 open because the user wishes to copy information from browser window 110 into spreadsheet application window 120, or vice versa. Unfortunately, there is not enough room on the available area of display 100a to show the entirety of both windows 110 and 120 at the same time. Thus, the user will have to resize one of windows 110 or 120, or be willing for one of windows 110 or 120 to overlap the other while the topmost window is active. Unfortunately, if the user resizes one or both windows 110 and 120 so that one or both are smaller, the user might then have to scroll within the diminished-size windows to be able to view content of interest. Alternatively, to be able to view all of the area of interest in a smaller window, the user might have to reduce the font and/or scale size of the document of the document open in the window to a point where the document is hard to read.
In FIG. 1A, spreadsheet window 120 is the active window, as indicated by spreadsheet window 120 partially covering browser window 110. That spreadsheet window 120 is active also is indicated in a taskbar 130 by a taskbar button 134 that represents spreadsheet application window 120 being highlighted (as evident by its color, shade, and/or intensity), while a taskbar button 132 that represents browser window 110 in taskbar 130 is not highlighted. To make browser window 110 active, the user can select window 110 or taskbar button 132, which will enable the user to open an e-mail or perform another function. Unfortunately, when window 110 becomes active, it will partially cover spreadsheet application window 120, obscuring part of the page. Even if the user only wants to briefly view but not interact with one of the windows, an overlapping active window may cover at least a portion of the window or windows that the user wants to view.
The problem of not having enough room on the screen for all desired windows may also be complicated when a user accesses on-line help. In FIG. 1B, with the windows 110 and 120 presented on a display 100b, the user is accessing on-line help that appears in a window 140. Although the on-line help in window 140 may provide desired information to the user, it unfortunately covers part of spreadsheet window 120 for which the user has requested the help, because window 140 has become the active window, as indicated by window 140 appearing on top of window 120 and having a highlighted task button 136 in taskbar 130. Therefore, if the user was seeking help in creating a formula to be entered on a right-hand side of window 120 where on-line help window is now displayed, help window 140 blocks that area so that the user can neither see the help information or enter data in that portion of window 120 without having to rearrange the windows or resize the content presented on the screen.
Other automated features of the computing system also might hamper the user's ability to work. FIG. 1C shows a view of a display 100c where windows 110 and 120 are still displayed. In FIG. 1C, however, portions of both windows 110 and 120 are covered by a reminder window 150 that has been generated by a calendaring program (not shown). Reminder window 150, as indicated by a highlighted task button 138 in taskbar 130, automatically becomes the active window when it is opened on the display. As a result, a sudden appearance of reminder window 150 not only can block the window in which the user has been working, but in becoming the active window, will intercepts any input that was originally directed to one of the other windows 110 and 120 presented on display 100c and previously the active window. Thus, unfortunately, if the user was in the process of performing a mouse click, entering keystrokes, or providing other input, and the user was in the middle of a thought related thereto, the input to that work—and the thought—are lost, at least temporarily. The user cannot continue what the user had been doing just before reminder window 150 appeared, until the user closes or moves reminder window 150, or at least again sets one of the other windows in which the user wants to work, as the active window.
It would be highly desirable for users to be able to see all of the contents of a window without necessarily having to make it an active window. Specifically, it would be desirable to be able to see all of the content of a window without the need to make that window active so that it partially or largely covers another window, which the user wants to see or in which the user want to be able to work. Further, it would be desirable for a new window to appear on the screen without the user immediately losing the ability to enter input into what had just been the active window before the new window appeared. In short, it would be highly desirable to be able to view more information on a computer display without sacrificing the ability to view and access information or interact with a window that is currently displayed.